The livest one.

Representing BK to the fullest.

Hard to be more on point than dude here. [Props for the Marlo header shot too!] But to not attempt even a half-hearted post on this occasion would be failure of the highest order.

Image has always been everything with Becks, whether it's the endless permutations of follicular placement or his iconic, inimitable, impossibly-balanced shape upon striking the ball. Wow. Bet you though this was about to get real squishy. Let those with distinguished Scottish accents get away with the waxy poetics. I'd prefer to be as reductionist as possible.

Call it CHANGING FACES:

+ Inscrutable: Watching this will hopefully underscore how pointless, or at least unnatural, a highlight reel feels re: Beckham. He's most effective (most famously) from dead ball situations, with inch-perfect crosses and lofted balls, or without the ball completely, doing his decapitated chicken bit in the midfield. Watching him score goals in the run of play feels ridiculous; I wonder what it'll look like in the (weird!) MLS.

+ Cherubic: Still the young Essex boy, still apple of Sir Alex's eye.

+ Galactic: Generally a disaster in practice, the whole Galactico era at Madrid sometimes bore some really pretty, rather fascinating fruit.

+ Petulant: More so than that wonder goal @ Wimbledon, what first put Beckham's name atop the so-called red-tops in England, for all the wrong reasons.

+ Caught Offside: Most remarkable for SBC's comic agility & quickness and for a somewhat-respectable performance by Posh. And a common misconception (ha!) about Brooklyn dispelled.

+ Chagrined: Really tho?

+ Capitalist: Get ready for the deluge; as far as these go, this passes for classic. Shouts to Mean Joe Green.

+ Humbled: The worst of times.

+ Superlative: The best of times.

+ Triumphant: Out on top.

People are making monumentally stupid comparisons to other "transcendent" sports figures (NASL-era Pele, Gretzky etc.), but the easiest and truest equation to American celebrity -- if you absolutely need one -- is right in front of our fat expectant faces: Tom Cruise.

Much like my boy Unemployment I fucking love Tom Cruise. I love Mission Impossible Tom Cruise; I love Eyes Wide Shut Tom Cruise -- incidentally the most flawless portrayal of "Tom Cruise" in cinema history (His character's incessant ID-pulling -- "Bill Hartford, Doctor" -- might as well have read "Tom Cruise, Actor"). Tom Cruise does "Tom Cruise" and all its attendant "Tom Cruise Shit" better than anyone. He does one thing better than the rest of the world: the "Tom Cruise Ingratiating, Beaming, Beatific Tooth-Face™." As a producer you don't hire an actor for, say, Valkyrie; you hire "Fucking Tom Cruise." Same with Beckham (it's no wonder they're friends). On the right days, Beckham strikes the ball with his right foot truer than anyone on the planet; that's what he does well. That, and sell things. That's pretty much it, and generally while wearing expensive shit. So that's what MLS is getting: the Tom Cruise of world football. Which is not bad in my book.

UPDATE: He has a blog.

Buy U A Drank

I'ma take you home with me.

TOM: "Let's talk money."
DAVID: "I talk that."

Walk Like a Champion

Rom-pa-pa-pom-pom

Buju Banton - Champion

Exactly what Becks & Co. are listening to at this late hour, we're sure of it.

Let's set the scene: We're at Arena. It's late, and getting early. And from where we're standing, just over van Nistelrooy's bobbing head we can see Roberto Carlos, standing atop the bar, wearing one of those tiny sombreros and his game shorts, inviting patrons to admire the definition of -- and perhaps stroke -- his thighs. There is a sizeable line. The rest of the Brazilians are dancing furiously, Emerson throwing 'bows so as to give Robinho and Cicinho ample space to move. A generous soul, he is. Guti, having promised the team he'd shave his head if they won the league, has been fantastically successful convincing girls on the dance floor that he is indeed David Beckham. Iker Casillas is doing his level best to cock-block, as per usual. Guti hates this. Raul is having problems convincing people that he is Raul. Cannavaro never made it inside the club -- still outside posing for paparazzi. Antonio Cassano, who hasn't yet picked up Spanish (he considers it an inferior dialect of Italian, fit for children, maybe) and spends all his time with his fellow countryman, is sulking next to the bouncer, halfway through a pack of Ducados, which he'd be the first to admit are terrible cigarettes.

Our boy Becks? I think you know just as well as we do who he's with and what he's doing. Yeah.

But for, um, real, normalmente no soporto los merengues, but Don & Co. are genuinely happy for D.B. When this guy is on you side, you can't go wrong, can you?

UPDATE: Watch...Highlights of Madrid-Mallorca + ensuing celebrations

"They drink Haterade."

Or something to that effect.

Either Don Rodriguez is doing his part to prepare America for the already ridiculous level of scrutiny with which David Beckham is already looked at in places that do not solely associate the man with movies where he supposedly bends things, or he's cashing his fat, pound sterling check from David's publicist.

But anyway, dunny got a new tattoo.

Seemingly derived (OK, maybe only in the Don's free-associative mind) from the Dungeon Family School of forearm ("sleeve") tats, it appears that his new arm art consists of a mixture of scenery and text. We're sure the pictures are pretty, but we're more concerned with the words here, as is the classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, since the message is a Latin slogan rendered in English on Becks. To wit:

The original reads in Latin: “Oderint dum metuant” (a nice example for you Latinists of the use of “dum as proviso, plus the subjunctive”). According to the Daily Mail, Becks first of all wanted the real Latin, but it was the word dum (“provided that/as long as”) that caused the problem. Could it be taken as a reflection of the mental agility of Mr Beckham? Better perhaps to play safe by avoiding it entirely?

In fact as any classicist must know, the word ‘dum’ is only part of the reason why having “oderint dum metuant” or its English equivalent might be an own goal.

Now, this is apparently not the first time Beckham has run afoul of spelling, grammar (or here, accidentally advocating tyranny) in terms of inscribing something on his person that can't easily be removed. Supposedly the tattoo on the inside of his left arm -- "Victoria" in Hindi -- actually spells out "Vihctoria." Which is tragic and hilarious. But anyone who's watched Miami Ink even once -- and I've watched it twice goddamit -- knows that for some reason, people find it nigh-cancerous to actually go and check on the spelling and/or grammatical/syntactical correctness of a phrase that they are having, painfully, applied to their body. Go figure. Or don't, then have someone tattoo it on your face.

Next thing to prepare America for re: Becks: his voice. Think Mike Tyson.

UPDATE: An eagle-eyed reader pointed out that I neglected to give those reluctant to click on the TLS link the English translation of D.B.'s tattoo. It reads: "Let them hate (me) as long as they fear (me)."